I've just spent the last couple of hours throwing every kind of data query I could think of at Walpha. Some of the results were incredibly useful, others baffling, and others just missing. Here are some of the fun facts I learned using Walpha's calculations.

Still, while Walpha's everyday uses for Joe Normal Web Searcher won't be obvious, this thing is a goldmine for researchers, students, journalists, and bloggers. If this is the alpha, I can't wait for the beta.

Gina, WolframAlpha is perfectly right, that your mother has a higher life expectancy. If she was 81.53 years old, would you expect the value to be 81.54? The older you are, the higher your LE is. Good news!

At 33, your life expectancy is lowered by all the people that die in car-crashes, of heart attacks, eaten by sharks, etc. But your mother has already lived to 70, she is more “likely” to live to 86 than you are simply because she has a head start.

To put it bluntly you have more time (from age 33-81) to die than she does (from 70-86).

BUT you’re right – at your birth you had a much higher life expentancy than her.

For example, if you look at the “% of living past” stats on those pages you’ll note that statistically, you are more likely to live beyond age 75 than her – on raw statistics alone.

No, Gina. This was the case if you jump back to 1939 and would predict her LE then. But in the meantime your mother has already lived out many other people, which for example died young because of car accidents, cancer etc. A 1975 born has many “risky years.”